An examination of Linux and Windows CE embedded operating systems

The software that operates mobile and embedded devices, the embedded operating system, has evolved to adapt from the traditional desktop environment, where processing horsepower and energy supply are abundant, to the challenging resource-starved embedded environment. The embedded environment presents the software with some difficult constraints when compared to the typical desktop environment: slower hardware, smaller memory size, and a limited battery life. Different embedded OSs tackle these constraints in different ways. We survey two of the more popular embedded OSs: Linux and Windows CE. To reveal their strengths and weaknesses, we examine and compare each of the OS’s process management and scheduler, interrupt handling, memory management, synchronization mechanisms and interprocess communication, and power management.